The fact that
Waldorf
schools work out of a spiritual understanding of the human being and
the
world, does not make them "religious" schools or church schools. They
have
no connection with a church. Anthroposophy, on which Waldorf education
is based, is a spiritual science which is independent of any religious
doctrine or system. It freely investigates the merits or otherwise of
various
doctrines, be they Christian, Judaic, Buddhist, Hindu, material
scientific,
humanist, or whatever. If Anthroposophy finds wisdom in any teaching
(as
it does in all of the above), this does not make it an adherent of this
teaching or a part of any group which promulgates it.

Despite this,
there
are occasionally people who claim that Waldorf schools are church
schools,
religious schools, and sectarian. This is a charge which arises either
out of misunderstanding or antagonism, not from a free, objective
inquiry
or an in-depth experience of spiritual science. The latest to put the
charge
forward are Dan Dugan and Judy Daar in their article "Are Rudolf
Steiner
Schools Nonsectarian?" in the Spring 1994 issue of Free Inquiry.

Free Inquiry is a
journal published quarterly in Buffalo by the Council for Democratic
and
Secular Humanism. Dan Dugan is an audio engineer whose son attended the
San Francisco Waldorf School in sixth and seventh grades in the late
1980's.
Judy Daar is a secular humanist and a board member of the East Bay
Skeptics
Society.

The Spring 1994
issue
of Free Inquiry
carries a front-cover statement which reads:

American
democracy draws its special vitality from the First Amendment, which
incorporates
the principle of the separation of church and state. In essence, the
United
States is a secular republic; this means that the government cannot
establish
a religion. It cannot favor religion over non-religion. The unique
character
of the American experiment is the existence of a wide diversity of
creeds,
sects, and voluntary organizations, each free to flourish on its own
terms
without any special encouragement by the state, with tolerance for a
wide
range of beliefs and values.

The
statement then continues
in a defensive mood:

We therefore
deplore the growing hostility toward secularism that has emerged across
the political spectrum. Leaders from the center and left, including
President
Bill Clinton, have recently joined the familiar voices on the right in
scapegoating secular ideals. It is naive to indict secularism for the
alleged
decline of society...

This
is the context
within which the anti-Waldorf article by Dugan and Daar appears. It
states
that because Waldorf schools are "openly sectarian" and operated by a
"cult-like
religious sect," Waldorf schools should not receive public funding, as
they do in "Milwaukee and Detroit." Dugan and Daar go on to say:

The
establishment
of publicly-funded Waldorf schools should be cause for alarm for anyone
who is concerned with preserving the separation of church and state,
because
these schools are the missionary arm of a religious sect hiding behind
a facade of propaganda and dissimulation.

Real
cause for alarm
for an open-minded person would be:

That there
exists the
prejudice that Anthroposophy is a religion or religious sect.

That there are
people
who want to keep Waldorf schools with their spiritual and human values,
out of an education supported by the general public.

The
plays of Shakespeare
or the works of Jung could equally come under the scrutiny of Dugan and
Daar and be condemned as "religious" in their meaning of the word.
Waldorf
schools seem to have been caught in the crossfire between humanism and
religion, yet the schools are party to neither. In fact Anthroposophy
is
far from such sectarianism and, from its independent position, is free
to extend its understanding to diverse teachings, religious or
otherwise.
For example, The Academy of Humanism has goals which include:

...furthering
respect for human rights, freedom, and the dignity of the individual;
tolerance
of various viewpoints and willingness to compromise; commitment to
social
justice; a universalistic perspective that transcends national, ethnic,
religious, sexual, and racial barriers...;

and
these tenets are
admirable.

There follow
some
of Dugan and Daar's specific statements (in italics) with my comments:

The
group's
[the Anthroposophical Society's] activities include... a
church, the
Christian Community. The Christian community is not part of
the Anthroposophical
Society. Rudolf Steiner did not found the Christian Community. It was
founded
and headed by a former Lutheran pastor who became involved with
Anthroposophy
and asked Rudolf Steiner for spiritual advice for this separate
initiative.

Steiner's
mystical
world view is deeply pessimistic. Despite the article's
mention in
this context of the "reincarnation of the dark god Ahriman," this
charge
of pessimism reveals the poverty of the authors' knowledge of, or
understanding
of, Steiner's work. His world view has as its basis a picture of human
life and consciousness evolving to higher levels.

Steiner
states
emphatically, in the manner of all religious dogmatists, that HIS
revelation
is the only truth, and that all other traditions and ways of knowledge
are erroneous. This is completely contradicted by Steiner's
continuous
appreciation of, and positive insight into, a wide variety of
philosophies,
religions, and work of individuals. Dogmatism was the very thing which
Steiner fought.

The
[Waldorf]
teachers are as dedicated as Catholic nuns. Waldorf teachers
are not
Catholic nuns, but they are dedicated. So are members of Congress. This
does not mean that Congress is a religious institution.

Besides
their
seductive beauty, these schools use deliberate deception about their
purpose
and organization to attract the children of outsiders. From the
beginning,
Steiner planned to attract the general public by systematically
concealing
the objectives of the schools and the contents of their curriculum.
If this is true, then where did the authors get their information for
the
article? As the article states, "Steiner's world view can be found in
books
from Anthroposophical presses on sale at Waldorf schools." Also,
Steiner
opened the first school specifically for non-Anthroposophical parents.

The authors
then
quote Steiner on the question of establishing an independent school
movement
in the State of Württemberg. Steiner had earlier mentioned the need
for a "certain mental reservation" in negotiating with the authorities
of the Weimar Republic (which succumbed to Nazi dictatorship within
little
more than a decade). Steiner then added, in the context of mental
reservation,
that the authorities would inwardly be made fools of. The intention was
not inwardly to make fools of the authorities. That, though, would be
an
objective consequence of the need for inward reservation. Dugan and
Daar,
however, pull Steiner's words (spoken at a private meeting and taken
from
shorthand notes in German) out of context for their own
purposes.

Any
knowledge
that conflicts with Steiner's eccentric doctrines is simply omitted
[from the science curriculum].... Waldorf graduates are
unlikely to
have a clear notion of the electromagnetic spectrum, despite having
taken
physics in both grammar and high schools. Any Waldorf school
worthy
of its name will teach the theories of conventional science along with
an imaginative approach which penetrates the subject with lively human
experience. Countless Waldorf graduates take up college studies
successfully.

The
use of the
word "God" in Waldorf class prayers was already, in the 1920's, a
conscious
accommodation to public sensitivities [sic]. Anthroposophical writings
usually refer to "the gods" rather than "God." These changes were
consistent
with Steiner's policy of camouflage. Anthroposophical
writings do indeed
refer to "God" when appropriate, as here. This was no accommodation to
the public. Also, the morning verse is not a "prayer," as Steiner
explains
in another quotation cited by the authors.

Waldorf
painting
classes have nothing to do with creativity or self-expression. Their
secret
intention is to work on the student's subconscious by meditation on
pure
color and symbolic images. Nonsense. This statement is more
fantastic
than anything the authors are accusing Anthroposophy of. Waldorf
painting
classes introduce the student to the laws of color and form through
creative
artistic activity, as any good art class should.

Waldorf schools
... have their own methods, which they have received from their master.
Since Steiner is dead, there can be no modification or development.
Untrue. Steiner was against any two teachers teaching the same thing in
the same way. Waldorf teachers are continually researching their
subjects
and developing the curriculum. I have a research paper from a Waldorf
teacher
on my desk right now. The training institute for which I work
graduates,
every year, students taking an official New York State Master's Degree
which requires free and independent research projects on Waldorf
Education.

Waldorf
primary
school students never touch a computer. The public explanation for this
is that a child shouldn't use anything before he can understand how it
works. The private reason is that computers are believed to be an
incarnation
of the evil spirit Ahriman. This is a good example of how concealed
doctrine
has a deleterious effect on the curriculum. Not so. The
computer, as
all of modern science, justifiably has its main focus in the upper
rather
than the lower grades of school. This has nothing to do with keeping
Ahriman,
or anyone else, out! Waldorf educators consider, along with many
non-Waldorf
educators (such as Dr. Jane Healey, author of Endangered
Minds: Why
Our Children Can't Think and What We Can Do About It, and
Professor
Joseph Weizenbaum of MIT) that work with computers is not appropriate
for
younger children and even may adversely affect their intellectual
development.

Thus the
article
continues, and I do not have the space to cover it all. Nevertheless, I
would like to salvage something positive. First, there is the question
of whether a full-fledged Waldorf school can exist within a
governmental
school system. The fundamental characteristic of Waldorf education is
that
it must operate in cultural freedom, independent of state control
concerning
its curriculum, methods and organization. Also, the faculty of such a
school
must have trained or genuine, Waldorf-committed teachers who freely
handle
the curriculum and the affairs of the school in mutual responsibility.
Even given the teachers' freedom, where will they come from? Already we
do not have enough trained teachers to go round the growing number of
Waldorf
schools which are independent of the state.

Secondly, I
think
that Dugan and Daar make a valid point when they ultimately say:

It might
be possible to establish schools that take many of the good Waldorf
school
ideas into a secular environment, but this could only be done by people
not indoctrinated by Anthroposophical training.

This
is a fair comment,
with the exception of the word "indoctrinated." The authors also
suggest
that "school boards are looking for creative alternative solutions to
educational
problems."

Countless
inquiries
asking for help from Waldorf methods have come to my training institute
over the past few years. I think that an important way in which public
schools can benefit from Waldorf education is for certain external
techniques
regarding, for example, the curriculum, classroom methods, and faculty
co-working to be integrated into the public school system. This could
be
done in response to the stated needs of the public school teachers.
Steiner
himself lectured to public school teachers and already courses and
counseling
for public schools are taking place through Waldorf training centers in
the United States. This could be developed further.

Before arriving
at
their final and important point about non-Waldorf schools taking up
"many
of the good Waldorf school ideas," Dugan and Daar seek to discourage
public
funding for Waldorf with an attack against the very spiritual science
which
inspired the good ideas. They assert that Anthroposophy is a "cult-like
religious sect" and Waldorf schools are "sectarian." If this were true
I would not have spent the last twenty years or so working within these
schools and within the Anthroposophical movement, and doing the work I
am doing now. I am simply not the type, and neither are my colleagues.